Ohana
by goldfish400
Summary: Maui evaluates his life and what it's like now that he has Moana in it. Alternatively, "What did I ever to do deserve a kid like her"


Maui sits just outside the entrance of Tamatoa's cave, peering in, and waiting for a signal to tell him that it's okay to go in. Tamatoa's definitely in there, he can see that, but if Maui waits long enough, he'll settle himself to sleep, and that'll make the cave much easier to sneak into. Next to him, Moana sits with an empty basket in her lap waiting for him to give her the signal to go.

It was Moana's idea to come to Lalotai in the first place. She had come straight to him from one of her chief's meetings with the basket already in her hands and told him she needed to gather something native only to here. With a knowing, mischievous smile, the two of them set out on their canoe right away.

In his cave, Tamatoa stirs, and Maui instinctively reaches his arm back at Moana to keep her still in case Tamatoa decides to stand and see the two of them sitting just outside his cave entrance. He doesn't, and instead simply adjusts his position before sinking himself further into the sand. For a few beats, Maui watches Tamatoa carefully to _really_ make sure he's not going to be moving anytime soon, his arm still raised in that protective gesture in front of Moana. When he's sure, he drops his arm down to his side and looks at her.

"And after waiting a decade for him to fall asleep," Maui whispers sarcastically. "I'd say it's safe to go in"

"Does he usually take this long?" Moana asks as she places the basket down next to her. She stands and stretches out her now-asleep legs. "I was hoping this would be a very in and out kind of thing" She says, and then picks the basket up and holds it under one of her arms.

"Crab cake?" Maui asks, his gaze quickly shooting to Tamatoa. "He's a perfectionist, Curly. If anything it seems to me that he took less time than usual." He sends another quick glance towards the cave entrance. "Which is probably why you should be extra cautious in case he tries to pull something" He says, and this time Moana is the one to peek into the cave. After a short moment, she nods, and slowly begins to step inside. Without hesitation or second thought about it, Maui follows close behind her, brandishing his hook in case Tamatoa really does decide to wake up and try to start something with her. Once inside, Maui begins to sneak towards Tamatoa's shell to pluck something off of it, but much to his surprise, in front of him, Moana instead makes a run for the side of the cave.

"Moana!" he whispers to her loudly, and runs as quietly as he can over to her to stand in between her and the giant sleeping coconut crab. "What are you doing? I thought you said you needed something shiny from down here"

"I do," she says as she continues to pick plants and shove them into her basket. "This just seemed a lot easier than trying to pull something off of his shell without him noticing. Cover me while I look around for more?" Moana stands and Maui notices that some of the bioluminescent algae had rubbed off of the plants and onto her legs. Anyone would be able to see her, even if they were half-buried in the sand with their eyes closed.

"Of course" He says, and this time assumes a position in front of her as she stands to walk to another patch. Maui holds out both of his arms in front of her to block Tamatoa's would-be view from her and raises his hook in one of his hands to pose himself as a threat in case Tamatoa still managed to see her and decided to attack her with a demigod standing in his way. Once at the second patch of plants, Moana gets back down on her knees to fill the basket the rest of the way up. Maui stands in front of her in a protective stance, his hook shoved into the sand for emphasis.

Once her basket is full, she stands.

"I'm ready" she whispers, and closes the basket cover. Maui pulls his hook out of the sand, and Moana tucks the basket back underneath her arm. Before they're even out of Tamatoa's cave, Moana leans her head against head against his shoulder and looks up at him with this innocent, beaming smile.

"What?" he asks her when they're finally outside the cave, and Moana's grin only widens as her eyes dart quickly to his fish hook and then back to him. He follows her gaze, and for a moment he doesn't have the slightest clue what she's trying to say, but realization comes to him when her eyes excitedly dart back to the hook again.

"Moana, no" he says, and her smile drops, replaced with an annoyed look, and she folds her free arm over the one holding the basket due to her current inability to cross her arms.

"Come on, _please?_ _Just once?_ " She begs, and takes a quick glance around at her surroundings. "You've never let me do it before, and this seems like the perfect situation to try it out in. We're already trying to get up there, right?" She asks, and points up at the surface of the ocean. "If we try to take the geyser, it might destroy all the plants." She says, tapping at the basket with her fingers as if she's trying to remind him they're in there. Maui follows her gaze up to the surface and realizes she's right. He lets out a quiet sigh, and quickly glances at his fish hook.

"Fine" he says, and Moana looks as if she has to physically stop herself from squealing.

"Really?" she beams excitedly, and nearly drops the basket.

Maui has to force a smile of his own down. "But only this _once_ , okay?"

"Mmhmm, Mhmm," Moana nods excitedly, clearly not paying complete attention to what he's saying. "Then come on! Get to it!" She says, and Maui rolls his eyes playfully as he now takes the hook in both hands. With a flash, he becomes a hawk.

"If you drop the basket," he says as she excitedly scrambles onto his back. "I'm not coming back for it" Maui says, and without another word, he lets out a loud screech and takes off from the ground and quickly ascends towards the surface. At first, Moana only digs her nails into his feathers as she grips him tightly, but it's not long before her grip eases up. He feels her push the basket closer to her body, and not before long, he can see her pump both arms into the air out of the corner of his eye. She lets out this excited cheer, like she's finally doing something she's wanted to her whole life, and even in hawk form, Maui smiles. He lets out another screech, and picks up speed as he approaches the surface. When he breaks through, he ascends a few feet in the air and hovers in place as he looks for their canoe. When he spots it, he makes a nose dive at it so quickly he can hear Moana on top of him squeak as she scrambles to keep both her and the basket in place. She jumps off of his back the minute his feet touch the boat's deck, and with another flash Maui returns himself to his human form.

Moana places the basket down. "That-" she says, running her fingers through her hair. "Was _incredible!"_ She says, and punches him in the arm. "I can't believe we've never done that before!" She almost yells, excitement still beaming in her eyes.

"Well, maybe it's because we've never been able to escape Lalotai as easily as we did, kiddo" he says, shaking his head. "I don't think even I've ever been able to sneak down there and go completely unnoticed the entire time. Up top!" He says, holding a hand in the air, and Moana smiles as she jumps to return the high five.

"Yeah! Up top!" she says, and picks up the basket before walking and sitting beside their boat's storage compartment. She opens it, and rummages through it before picking up the wooden mortar and pestle she had borrowed from the medical _fale_ to bring with her. Pausing, she glances up at Maui.

"Do you think you could find our way home? I kind of need to focus on this more than anything else right now" She says, already opening the basket and transferring some of the delicate plants into the small cup.

"What are those plants for, anyway?" Maui asks as he sets himself down at the controls. Adjusting the sail slightly, he sets the boat's course for Motunui and watches her as she works.

"Paint" she replies, and begins to gently crush the plants until they're nothing more than a bright, glowing liquid.

"Kid, you're telling me we came all the way down here just so you could make paint? Aren't there some plants back home you could've used just as easily?" He asks, and for a moment he freezes up at how casually he had used the word 'home'. It wasn't one he liked to throw around, and it was his first time using it when referring to Motunui.

Moana takes no notice. "There aren't any plants that glow in the dark on Motunui, Maui" she says, a slight smile forming on her lips as she begins to crush more plants from her basket into a glowing liquid. Okay, so maybe she had noticed.

"Well, what good is glow in the dark paint, anyway? What would you use it for?"

"Rangi's mother asked me to make some for him. Apparently he's afraid of the dark and she thinks it would help him sleep better" Moana says as she begins to stir what paint she has before adding another handful of plants to the cup.

"Really?" Maui asks, quickly glancing up at the sky. "Of all the things he could be afraid of, he chooses to be afraid of the _dark?_ My stories get almost nothing out of him, but the sky changing colors at night does?" He asks, and Moana huffs out an amused laugh.

"He's just a kid, Maui. It's not uncommon for kids to be afraid of the dark. I was too" She says, rolling her eyes in amusement. "Somehow 'large mass of water that constantly makes crashing sounds on the beach' sounded great even to little me while the night sky or an unlit _fale_ sounded terrifying" She says, and then pauses in her work to look up at him.

"Were you never afraid of the dark when you were a kid?" She looks at him with curiosity.

"Pssh, of course not" Maui says, rolling his eyes at her. "That's ridiculous"

"Were you…" Moana pauses. "Were you afraid of anything?" she asks, and that gets a laugh out of him.

"I'm flattered that you'd think I wasn't" he says, placing a hand over his heart mockingly. "But of course I was afraid of stuff. I _was_ only a toddler when-" he starts, but he cuts himself off before he can go any further into uncomfortable territory. "I was still just a kid when the gods started raising me, right?" He corrects himself. "Well just like any other kid I had stuff I was afraid of. I could still list some of them off if I tried, I think" he says, and smiles nostalgically for a brief moment before it disappears and is replaced with one full of mischief. "But you want to know what they told me to do?" He asks, and Moana eyes him curiously. "They told me to face my fears. So I did, and now I'm not afraid of them anymore" He says, and for a brief moment his eyes flash down towards the ocean. "So I think maybe Rangi should do the same thing" he says, and Moana rolls her eyes as she goes back to stirring the paint together.

"What do you expect him to do, punch the air when it gets dark out?" She says, and snorts when Maui glares at her for a moment. "Rangi isn't being raised by the gods, so if he wants to stay scared of the dark and deal with his problem by sleeping with a little glow in the dark trinket next to his mat to help him sleep at night, I think you should let him" Moana says. She then opens her mouth to say something else, considers who she's talking to, and closes it. "Besides," she says instead. "I think you're just upset you didn't get to steal from Tamatoa like you really wanted to"

"Hey" Maui says, and points an accusing finger at her. "Gold would've worked just as well as that mush" he says, gesturing now to the almost full cup of liquid. "And when Rangi was done with it, he could've traded it off to someone from a different village for something just as valuable"

"Mmhmm" Moana raises an eyebrow at him, unconvinced. "And it totally had nothing to do with the fact that Tamatoa would've completely freaked out when he saw part of his collection was missing, right?"

"It's called an extremely fortunate coincidence, Curly"

"Sure it is" Moana says sarcastically, and tosses in the last of the plants from the basket. "Besides, what makes you think this stuff wouldn't be valuable?" She asks, swirling it around in the small cup. "Just calling it 'glow in the dark paint derived of plants only native to Lalotai' makes me sound like this wealthy stuck up kind of Chief, and I only created it to make a night light for a kid from the village who needs it to help him sleep at night. I'm sure one night light won't require all of it, and I'm certain other villages could find good use for it as well. So technically speaking, Rangi could still trade it off for something just as valuable if he wanted to" She says, and carefully places the finished, nearly overflowing cup of paint on the deck in front of her. Careful not to knock it over, Moana reaches over and grabs the basket and pops the cover open.

"You may not be wealthy and stuck up" Maui says as he watches her transfer the liquid from the cup to the basket. "But you _are_ stubborn" He says, and she smiles as she opens the storage unit back up.

"It's just my way of being me" she says in an almost mocking tone, and turns her back to him as she opens the storage unit.

"How are we doing on location?" She asks as she places the basket down into the storage compartment with care and ease. "Ideally I'd like to be back before tomorrow, but if that's not possible that's fine" She says, shrugging, and Maui turns his attention away from her and looks out at the sea. Approaching them at the same, steady pace they're moving at is what appears to be a large, white boulder.

"I don't know" Maui says, scratching his head. "I'm positive we're going the right way, but something seems off about that-" He starts, but then his voice gets caught in his throat as more of the strange 'boulder' comes into view.

It's not a boulder at all.

It's his old island. And it's a lot smaller than he remembers.

Even from this distance, he can already make out the shape of the entire island, from the small cave he slept in at night to that pathetic excuse of a beach Moana's canoe had crashed on the first day they met. He remembers that when he was stuck there, it felt like he had to walk _miles_ to get to the beach from that cave, but now, from the canoe, it looks as if all he would've needed to do was take two steps out that cave to find himself on the beach. Even the boulders that make up about 90 percent of the island itself appear to be shorter. Standing on that island, they seemed to loom over him, to mock him, but now even the mast of the canoe looks taller than the tallest boulder on the island. They even seem more worn away by weather than he remembers, each of the rocks deprived of more color than the last time he saw them, which is weird, because he can't seem to remember the last time that was-

Maui blinks.

He hasn't seen this island since he left it on Moana's canoe.

Three years. It's been three years since he journeyed with her to restore the heart of Te Fiti. Three years since her people offered him a place on their island, and three years since they began to treat him like one of their own.

Three years he's been voyaging with Moana, and he hasn't seen any sign of this awful, crummy island _once_ since then.

For three years, Moana's sought alternative routes to destinations to avoid passing it. For _him._ She's been adding an unnecessary additional two or three days onto their voyages for _him_ , to keep _him_ comfortable, so _he_ doesn't have to call back any unwanted memories.

With a start, Maui realizes that _Moana_ had been the one sitting at the controls on their way to Lalotai. If she hadn't been too busy to sit at them on the way home, he realizes, there's a good chance this encounter probably wouldn't be happening.

"Maui?" Moana's voice startles him from his thoughts. "You kind of stopped talking mid-sentence, are you-" she starts, and cuts herself off when she sees he's not looking at her. She follows his gaze, and a soft _oh_ seems to escape her lips as she goes to stand next to him.

"Are you okay?" She asks, and Maui tears his glance away from the island to look down at her. Her eyes are full of concern and an overwhelming amount of sympathy, and quickly calling back what she's been doing to avoid exactly this situation for the entire three years she's known him, he laughs and reaches down to ruffle her hair. She groans in protest, but there's a smile on her face.

"Yeah," he says, his glance returning to his old island. "I think I am" he says, and she smiles as she turns back to where she had been before and sits back down. As Maui watches the island pass, he sees for the first time in a thousand years the outline of a mountain sitting on the horizon. He immediately recognizes it belonging to Motunui, and he lets out a quiet laugh to himself.

His island, his _real_ island- His _home,_ Motunui, could be seen from his _prison,_ and he never knew. He never bothered to look out at the water much, but if he had, he would've found himself looking at the island that would become his _home,_ and the island that housed the girl he would grow to view as family-

 _Family._ The word rushes to his thoughts so suddenly he finds himself whispering it under his breath. He glances back at Moana, kicking her feet in the water, and he smiles. Maui views her like she's his family, something he's _never_ been able to say about anyone else he's ever met. It's Moana's people she introduced him to, Moana's island she provides him a home on, and it's Moana herself that's always there for him through thick and thin.

If that's not the definition of family, he's not sure what is.

Taking the oar out of the water, he stands from the controls and walks to her.

"Hey, Moana" he says, and she turns to him. "It looks like we're getting close; do you want to take over for the rest of the way home?" He says, and she smiles as she stands and takes the oar from him. He takes her place at the front of the canoe, and dangles his feet in the water as he watches as they ever so steadily approach _his home,_ and as _his family_ guides him there. He takes a brief glance back at Moana and can't help but smile. Returning his gaze to Motunui's steadily approaching shore, he allows himself to get lost in his thoughts.

People calling his and Moana's name from the island is the first thing to pull him from his thoughts. The second is realizing how close they are to the beach. Behind him, Moana stands, smiling, and walks to the storage compartment. Opening it, she pulls out her basket full of paint and sloshes it around like she needs reassurance that it's still in there. She closes the storage compartment, and with the basket now in her lap, she sits back down at the controls and works on getting the boat the rest of the way to the beach. As soon as it touches the sand, Moana scoops the basket under her arm and jumps off the side of the canoe.

"Come on!" She calls to him and Maui smiles as he jumps off the canoe and follows closely behind her into the village. As he follows her, he takes a look around her village, _his_ village, and just seems to soak in the environment. The warm atmosphere, the beautiful plant life, the birdsong he's able to hear even though it's midday, and most importantly, the _people._ The people who were quick to accept him, the people who refused to turn him away, the people who smile at him warmly each time he makes accidental eye contact with any of them. Hispeople. He returns his attention forward to what's in front of him. Moana. _His people. His family._

Apparently spotting who she had been looking for, Moana takes a sudden turn and approaches a woman sitting outside a _fale_ like she's waiting for her.

"Ruiha" Moana says, and respectfully dips her head to her. "We got what you asked for." Moana says, and opens the basket to show her its contents. "Bioluminescent plants from Lalotai crushed into paint. It glows in the dark, so I'm sure this will help Rangi go to sleep at night. Cover one of his toys with it, and he'll have a source of light with him when he goes to bed at night so he won't have to fear the dark" Moana says, and Ruiha smiles.

"Thank you, both of you" she says, her eyes darting in between both Maui and Moana. Moana simply smiles back, and Ruiha takes the basket from her before disappearing into her _fale_. Maui stands in place for a moment, his throat dry, and after a short moment, he sighs.

"Moana, can we talk?" He asks, and she turns to him, smiling.

"Of course!" she says. "Walk to the beach with me?" She asks, and he nods. Together, the two of the silently make their way down to the beach. Once there, instead of walking any further, Maui sits down on the sand and pats at the ground next to him. Confused, Moana joins his side and sits down.

For a moment, neither of them say anything, both of them looking out at the water and listening to it crash peacefully against the island shore. Taking a moment to collect his thoughts, Maui briefly closes his eyes, and then leans back on his hands, sighing quietly.

"You know, I've never really felt like I belong anywhere before" Maui says, and Moana turns her head to look at him. "I've never felt like I had a real family or a real place I could honestly call my home" He says, and despite these awful things he's saying, he smiling. Really, genuinely smiling. He glances at her and laughs kind of sheepishly. "And then?" Maui asks, and he shakes his head. "I met you, Moana" He says, and has to fight back the tears he feels beginning to form in his eyes. " _You_ are my family" He says, and takes a quick look around at the beach they're currently sitting on. " _You_ make me feel like I have a real home" he says, and whether he's referring to Motunui itself or to her or to both he's not sure. He pauses for a moment. "You mean a lot to me, Moana. _You_ make me feel like I finally belong somewhere" He finishes, and looks back out at the water and _continues_ to fight those tears from rolling down his cheeks.

Suddenly, a soft noise next to him catches his attention, and he glances back over at Moana.

 _She's_ crying. Heavy tears are filling her eyes, and she has a hand pressed up against her chest-up against her _heart_ as she tries to calm her breathing down from the heavy hyperventilating she's doing right now. Despite this, he can see that a warm smile is fighting to break through her lips. When it hits her that he stopped talking, she looks at him for a brief moment, those tears still heavily falling down her cheeks, and then she throws herself at him in a tight hug. Instantly Maui carefully wraps his arms around her and catches her.

"You're-" she starts, but then she seems to choke on her words and she has to give herself a minute to cry into his shoulder.

"You're my family too" she manages to choke out, and those words alone, that reassurance that he's not alone, that he'll _never be_ alone is enough for him to lose the battle he was having with himself and let his tears pool and roll down his face.

There the two of them sit, both heavily sobbing, in the warm embrace of the other. There the two of them stay, for an unknown amount of time, soaking in the kind of warmth and love from each other you only seem able to receive from a member of your true genuine family.


End file.
